This Week… Getting in the Groove

Our family pictures were made available to us this week. I thought I would share one here. A special thank you to Tara from Tara O’Neal Photography for a great shoot.

This is the first school week where I feel like we successfully completed a full week of work. It’s just been difficult this fall to get into the regular routine. Our routine: 4 days of school work in the classroom, Monday through Thursday. Friday is for gym and alternate Friday’s include our support group Making Memories Homeschool Support Group. Sometimes we will do grocery shopping or chores after but no structured school unless we are really behind.

Bible: 

We reached the 9th plague of the Egyptians this week. I’m loving Bible Study Guide For All Ages. I’m really seeing Jonathan begin to not only know facts about the Bible but he’s beginning to put them into context with what he is learning in history and have some understanding on why these things happened.  Next week we will study the Passover, really take a look at what happened, what it meant, the significance of it and the foreshadowing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Grammar:

We are delving into sentence structure. I loved diagramming sentences when I was in school. I was talking to my mother-in-law a few weeks back, who at one time was an English teacher, and she and I were talking about Little Man’s boredom when it comes to grammar. She suggested diagramming sentences. Since he loves facts, and structure and order, why now show him the structure of a sentence? That was a light bulb moment for me. I started searching the shelves for material I might already have on hand and came across a Grammar book from when I was in High School. It might be a bit over his level but it will give him a chance to stretch his thinking and I can ease up if I see him struggling. The book starts with defining the parts, so this is mostly review anyway, but it won’t be long until he’ll begin to see sentence parts like this:  

Math:
After doing the Lesson 1 Review from our Algebra, I was able to see that he is struggling to understand order of operation. This is a hard concept for most people to understand let alone a 9 year old boy. After-all, we teach them early on that we read from left to right, we teach them to add numbers from left to right. Now, suddenly I’m teaching him PEMDAS, Parentheses first, then exponents, then multiplication and division, and finally addition and subtraction. The order matters in the world of Algebra. So straight to my back up plan I went. Kahn Academy. This is where Little Man can practice, practice, practice until I am entirely sure he has the concept completely down before moving forward.  

History & Art:
Continuing on in Mystery of History, we began to explore some of the most famous Pharoah’s of Egypt, Amenhotop and Queen Nefertiti. Little Man discovered some ancient art in the nobleman’s scene and will also be doing some death masks next week.  






Literature:  
Having discovered Quizlet I was able to find several vocabulary flashcard set’s. I printed the ones that we will be using in conjunction with The Golden Goblet and also laminated them with my new laminator. Now we have a ready reference for vocabulary words, places, characters and even Egyptian gods and godessess. 

 Devotion: 
 This week I’m going to share with you a devotion presented by my glorified brother in the Lord. I’ve never met this young man. I learned of his story through others within the brotherhood of the Lord’s church. This young man is a powerful speaker for God. Just take a moment to listen to this devotional that he recorded on You Tube.